Criminal Counterfeiting

What the big banks did during the housing bubble of the mid-2000s was in essence straightforward counterfeiting. The difference between what they did and regular counterfeiting was simply the kind of fake paper; regular counterfeiters print fake, valueless cash, while the banks were printing fake, valueless bonds.

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[The banks behaved exactly like] counterfeiters [who] would not print up $100 million in cash and then spend it all themselves. Instead, they sell their fake cash to others for a percentage of the face value.

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If in 2005 a bank packaged worthless mortgages together into a bond with a face value of, say, $100 million, it would generally collect fees of about 1.5 percent, or $1.5 million. The $100 million face value wasn’t real, but the fees definitely were.

  Jon Schwartz: The Intercept

And, just like criminal counterfeiters, the banks passed all the losses to the poorest, most naive people who get stuck with bad paper.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.